An Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer was injured this Friday, October 10, in an attack by Israeli settlers in the northern West Bank while covering the olive harvest in a Palestinian town.
“In my thirty-year career, this is the first time I have faced violence of this kind,” said Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a Palestinian photographer based in Nablus, in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. “If I had not managed to escape, they would have killed me,” he added.
According to his testimony, Jaafar Ashtiyeh covered olive harvesting in Beita, a Palestinian village south of Nablus, and more particularly a solidarity action by Israeli and foreign peace activists who came to support the inhabitants in the face of repeated attacks by Israeli settlers against olive groves during the harvesting period.
Shortly after noon, two groups of Israeli settlers armed with sticks and stones (about 70 people in total) attacked the olive pickers and journalists present, Jaafar Ashtiyeh said. Hit by several stones on the back, arm and hand, the journalist was released from the hospital in the afternoon and suffered bruises. His car, like a handful of others parked a good distance from the field, was stoned before being set on fire by the attackers.
An “increasingly dangerous work environment in the West Bank”
According to Jaafar Ashtiyeh, the Israeli soldiers present at the scene even before the attack began did nothing to hinder the attackers’ advance, but instead fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at the olive pickers and activists to disperse them.
“We strongly condemn this outrageous attack which illustrates once again the increasingly dangerous working environment for our journalists in the West Bank,” said AFP Central Editor-in-Chief Mehdi Lebouachera.
“We urge the Israeli army not only to ensure the protection of journalists in the exercise of their profession, but also to ensure that the perpetrators of violence against them are brought to justice,” added Mehdi Lebouachera.
Contacted by AFP to give their version of the incident, the Israeli army had not yet responded by 8:15 p.m. local time. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 36 people were injured on Friday following settler attacks in Beita and other surrounding communities, most with minor or moderate injuries, with the exception of two gunshot wounds.
Violence in the West Bank has skyrocketed since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Source: BFM TV
